In order, Bessent is a Soros allied historically macro-attentioned economist and successful fund manager, he's gay, and his policies fit Trump's outlook and plans. He would not have been selected to head Treasury if not in harmony, nor if untalented or without a track record, since Trump has no intention to tank the economy and be hated for it. Wikipedia. Inflation will be a question Trump must face.
Regarding Bessent, MSN, saying
In his first interview following his selection, Bessent said his policy priority will be to deliver on Trump’s various tax-cut pledges. Those include making his first-term cuts permanent, and eliminating taxes on tips, social-security benefits and overtime pay.
Enacting tariffs and cutting spending will also be a focus, he said, as will be “maintaining the status of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.”
Bessent became one of Trump’s closest advisers by adding depth to his economic proposals and defending his plans for more activist trade policies. He has argued that the president-elect’s plans to extend tax cuts and deregulate parts of the U.S. economy would create an “economic lollapalooza.”
Trump selected him from several candidates jockeying for the job partly because he trusted him to execute the administration’s policies more than the other contenders, The Wall Street Journal has reported. The decision came after Elon Musk criticized Bessent as a “business-as-usual choice” while lobbying for Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick instead. (Trump later nominated Lutnick to lead the Commerce Department.)
Many on Wall Street, including hedge-fund managers Daniel Loeb and Bill Ackman, applauded the selection of Bessent. Investor Kyle Bass said on the social-media platform X that Bessent was “the single best choice.”
People who have worked with Bessent describe him as reserved and professorial. He once taught economic history at Yale University,
So, not a head-rattling choice as is yet-to-be-tested Hegseth, and set to be easily approved since his nomination was passed out of committee with bipartisan majority support.
..................................
The deportation template: This is Trump, and not entirely apart from Bessent's responsibilities, but not overlapping too much. Breitbart explains:
Colombian President Gustavo Petro backed down on his declaration that he would not accept deportation flights from the United States. He now says he will send his presidential plane to personally pick up the deported migrants, a U.S. official with knowledge on the matter told Breitbart News.
The Colombian president’s backpedaling came after President Donald Trump announced he would impose numerous sanctions—including “emergency 25% tariffs”—on Colombia in response to Petro’s reversal of his promise to accept deportation flights.
On Sunday, Petro — who initially said he would accept deportation flights from the U.S. but then refused to receive two flights containing a total of 160 deportable migrants — suggested he changed his mind about accepting the flights because the U.S. treats “Colombian migrants as criminals.”
Petro then demanded the United States “establish a protocol for the dignified treatment of migrants before we receive them.”
President Trump responded to the matter in a Sunday Truth Social post, declaring, “I was just informed that two repatriation flights from the United States, with a large number of Illegal Criminals, were not allowed to land in Colombia.”
“This order was given by Colombia’s Socialist President Gustavo Petro, who is already very unpopular amongst his people,” Trump continued. “Petro’s denial of these flights has jeopardized the National Security and Public Safety of the United States.”
President Trump went on to reveal that in response to this, he directed his administration “to immediately take the following urgent and decisive retaliatory measures:”
-Emergency 25% tariffs on all goods coming into the United States. In one week, the 25% tariffs will be raised to 50%.
-A Travel Ban and immediate Visa Revocations on the Colombian Government Officials, and all Allies and Supporters.
-Visa Sanctions on all Party Members, Family Members, and Supporters of the Colombian Government.
-Enhanced Customs and Border Protection Inspections of all Colombian Nationals and Cargo on national security grounds.
-IEEPA Treasury, Banking and Financial Sanctions to be fully imposed.
“These measures are just the beginning,” Trump added. “We will not allow the Colombian Government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the Criminals they forced into the United States!”
Other outlets might have covered that, or not, but it is wise to go to Breitbart on occasion to see things other outlets might emphasize less.
So, squeeze them by the nuts on relative economic heavyweight power, schoolyard bully style, but get the intended capatulation result. That is a deportation template.
Perhaps it is a template for Democrats and the media, although denying access seems enough to manage media. It seems to have worked spiffy-well on Joni Ernst with Hegseth getting a bare 51 votes because JD rode into the Senate on a white horse named 51. Mitch had to vote against Pete, so JD could perform. So -- Mitch did so JD could do so, proving he is more than Trump's bellboy. That he can show up and do something even Elon cannot, so there, do your salute car-boy!
It's not sensible, however, to minimize JD having a say in everything Trump considers. Trump listens, then does what he wants, thinking it best. Trump has four years, and then JD defines himself with an administration low public profile now so that he can fashion things as seem best to him four years from now.
In effect, JD seems deliberately set apart from public responsibility for administration actions. As if apart from decision consequences. Which is a wise way to go.
So, bottom line on the economy is Trump picks practical and experienced public sector money managers for Treasury and Commerce, Senate approval being almost certain, and ones picked are conservative and sycophantic, but smart and unlikely to poison any wells.
And that is good. We clearly do not need to make depressions great again.
Again, in closing, Breitbart is clearly biased, but sometimes things show up there besides Schumer's ineffective whining, and generic Tulsi hate. As if the Dems learned nothing from being hammered last election, same faces, same whines, while Trump resumes 2000 lb bunker buster bomb shipments to Isreal which Biden had paused to get Isreal to ease up on genocide. Which got ignored in the whining.
And, in closing, this and this, both of which CNN lets slide. The immediacy and aggressiveness of the deportation effort is news, as is Hollywood not pushing the election to Harris being true and how the party can fix things, by changing faces and power structure, and having actual and attractive policies rather than feel good identity politics and razzle dazzle that don't move the needle. Fix the fucking party, please, as a viable Medicare for All alternative to Trump/JD might be good for the nation even if Schumer and Pelosi have to step into the background for real reform.
Prominent egos largely empty of ideas but strong on Hollywood stars did not cut it, so why not CHANGE and HOPE? Or don't and see how JD handles two terms after Trump's second one. The message is on the wall. So set folks, please read it.
Please.
Mayor Pete "McKinsey" and Governor California won't cut it, talking glibly but with no policies to make people's economic lives better, the failure including Schmer's two to one suburban to urban worker joke, which did not materialize, and was bullshit from the start. Yes, unions are still in the Dem tent, at least at the leadership level, but do admit union membership has shrunk to where it could be countered by choking it in a bathtub. New people. Real ideas. Real effort to help people's economic lives instead of parading social bloc politics and personalities devoid of ideas. As if appealing only to easily snowed members of the masses, whom you call "deplorables." Reach out. Be sound. Not smoke and mirrors and Hollywood.
As an example, AOC is worth listening to, which is why people do listen and then ask, why is her party not listening? They then can see it is because they have donors with agendas apart from what people want. That is clear enough, and absent adjustment results will not change.
Cat lady Swift ended up a blip without promise of substance or lasting impact.
Get wise to it. I went with it as not-Trump, pitched it, and hoped. No luck, so I can see, do better, or not. The opportunity to retool is there needing only an intent.
Wall Street is not the answer to hating on immigrants as demographics change. Trump's scapegoating worked, and with that in mind, why oversell identity bloc answers with no policy? Medical and economic Angst are not well met with expensive Taylor Swift concerts, which matter little paycheck to paycheck.
____________UPDATE__________
Setting the record straight. The Columbia arrangment on repatriation flights is getting other media coverage. Breitbart simply pulled the trigger on the story a day earlier than other reports showing up. Strib, the local Minnesota daily today carried the AP feed, for example, while CNN wrote its own story. It is reassuring that the story got sufficient coverage. Breitbart being a day before others initially confused this Crabgrass post.
FURTHER: AP also reported upon things to be expected as Hegseth takes over his post as Pentagon head; AP headlining that report, "As Hegseth takes charge at the Pentagon, here’s what changes could be in store." Focal attention is on troops on US soil, in particular being used for border enforcement. There are other reported items too. Troop deployment ordered by executive order may face court challenges, given the Posse Comitatus Act. That AP item expressly notes:
Active-duty forces are prohibited from doing law enforcement duties on U.S. soil under the Posse Comitatus Act. Trump has signed an executive order directing that his defense and homeland security secretaries report back within 90 days on whether they think he should invoke the 1807 law called the Insurrection Act, which allows troops to be used for civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil during emergencies.
Should Secretaries say "Do it," that would be the point at which citizens would seek judicial relief based upon absence of true emergency situations; and at that point a battle up to SCOTUS may happen.